


tense (and release)

by Jelly



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Implied Nudity, teenagers trying really hard not to check each other out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jelly/pseuds/Jelly
Summary: They're teenagers. It's to be expected.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 316





	tense (and release)

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Implied nudity. Nothing explicit - just a couple of teenagers who are really into each other trying really hard not to check each other out - but I figure I should put the warning here anyway.

i.

It’s not that he thinks Rayla’s _not_ pretty.

Rayla’s _very_ pretty, horns and pointy ears and all, and Callum would know because he’s spent every waking moment with her since he and Ez left home. She’s athletic, and graceful, and she’s got eyes like he’s never seen; she’s talented, and kind, and he’ll admit, even, that her smile makes his heart miss beats sometimes; she’s, by all definitions, beautiful - so no, it’s not that he thinks Rayla’s _not_ pretty.

It’s that he was raised a _prince_ , and princes don’t _look_.

It’s easier said than done sometimes. Prince or not, he’s still a teenaged boy, and there wasn’t exactly an abundance of pretty teenaged girls at the castle while he was growing up. He’s always had that crush on Claudia, but it’s not really the same. Claudia dresses comparatively modestly, and that’s not to say that Rayla dresses _immodestly_ \- she needs to be able to move and dodge and fight, so it’s entirely fair that she dresses the way that she does - her clothes are just tighter fitting, and there’s a lot _less_ to leave to the imagination. 

But Callum doesn’t _look_ . He _doesn’t_ , because it’s un-princely, and unbecoming, and Rayla’s his friend and deserves _better_ than to be - y’know - _looked at_ in _that way_ by _him._ The times he’s done it so far - and there haven’t been many - have been completely unintentional because he would never just _look_ on purpose - if she was okay with it then _maybe_ , but she’s probably _not_ at this stage of their relationship and frankly, he doesn’t know that he is to begin with. Travelling in such close quarters is uncomfortable enough without that kind of awkwardness between them, and anyway, he’s a _prince_ and he respects her so no.

He doesn’t _look_.

Which is why he can say, with every ounce of honesty in his heart, that the one time he walks in on her while she’s _bathing_ is entirely an accident.

“Y-you’ve been gone ages,” he stammers - a poor excuse, he knows, but Rayla is legitimately furious and anything to appease her is better than nothing at all. “I was getting worried!”

He was. She might be a trained assassin, but she’d been gone almost an hour and, ten minutes ago, it seemed completely reasonable to try and find his missing friend. 

He couldn’t have known she was taking a bath.

(Who takes baths for _an hour_?)

“ _I can take care of myself_ ,” she snarls, her stare hard, but her face redder than Callum ever thought possible. She sinks lower into the lake, arms crossed protectively over her front. Callum keeps his own in front of his eyes, out of concern for her privacy and because he might actually wither and die from the glare she’s throwing at him. “You could have given me _some_ warning!”

“I didn’t know you were even here!” says Callum. “Besides, _you_ could have given me some! How was I supposed to know what you were doing? You just said you were going for a walk!”

Rayla scowls at him. He can feel it even from behind the barrier of his arms and eyelids. “Am I supposed to keep you posted on _everything_?” she snaps. “‘Oh, don’t mind me, Callum, I’m just going into the woods to -’”

“I get it!” Callum swallows, his mouth dry, his face so warm it might as well be on _fire._ “I just - I didn’t mean it, okay? I didn’t know! How could I? You hate the water!”

 _“Not enough to not take baths, you dingus!”_

She’s so angry she’s starting to sound shrill. 

Callum spins on his heel, arms still over his face, eyes still shut tight. He stumbles a little on the bank, but he’ll take falling on his face over actually dying by the wrath of a furious, embarrassed Moonshadow elf any day. “I’ll - I’ll just go,” he manages. He trips over his own ankle in his haste to get away. “I’m sorry, okay? I swear I didn’t see anything!”

(He hadn’t - except for the taut skin of her shoulders, the fine lines of muscle in her back, the curve of her waist, and the slightest swell of her - he stops himself there. Rayla is his _friend_ . She deserves better than this. And gods only know what she would do to him if he admitted, even just to himself, that he was _looking)._

She comes back to camp later, still red, still _furious_ , and it’s just the two of them and Zym now, but she seats herself as far away from him as possible anyway, too embarrassed to even speak.

Fair, Callum thinks, staring determinedly at the ground. It’s never been easier not to _look._

  
  


ii.

It’s not an incident they forget easily and it’s so much _worse_ now because Ezran’s not there to act as a buffer between them. They spend most of their travelling days pointedly pretending that it didn’t happen at all and Rayla’s pretty happy with that because the very _thought_ of it still makes her blush red enough to match Callum’s scarf.

They’re taking a break under the sleepy canopy of the Moonshadow Forest when Callum grimaces as he shrugs off his pack. Rayla would know that look anywhere - her training’s always been pretty varied, and she’s familiar enough with shoulder and back pain to know that he’s exhausted and doing too much.

He catches her eye and ducks his gaze, like he feels guilty for slowing them down. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “It’s heavy.”

Rayla makes a face at him. Things aren’t so awkward between them that she’s not concerned. “You can let _me_ carry it, y’know,” she points out. “That’s allowed.”

“No, it’s okay, I - um -” He falters. “It’s not like Zym’s egg,” he says. “It’s not like I don’t trust you or anything because - I mean - I do, with my life and all. But, like, I can’t fight very well and if anything happens, _you_ need to be able to move. It’s not fair if _you_ have to take care of me and Zym _and_ carry it.”

Moon and Stars, he’s such a sweetheart. Rayla heaves a sigh, and the unimpressed line of her lips softens into something closer to a smile. “Take off your jacket,” she says.

“Um.” Callum tenses, uncertain, but Rayla waves him off and picks her way across the foliage to help him peel it off. 

“Don’t be a baby,” she snorts, hanging the jacket off the nearest tree branch. She motions for him to sit down against the raised bough to their left and climbs over it herself to settle behind him. “Runaan - you remember him, right? He used to help with this kind of thing when I trained too hard. It does wonders. Just relax.”

She touches his shoulders without thinking about it, the muscle tense and warm beneath her hands. Callum goes rigid for a second, but she works her fingers into the knots behind his neck and in his back until she feels them loosen and he breathes out in relief. He’s got surprisingly broad shoulders for someone who’s such a nerd, and his arms are skinny and ill-defined, sure, but there’s definitely _muscle_ there, and she almost can’t help but wonder what he might look like under -

She stops.

Callum whines. “ _Hey_ .” He swivels around a little to pout at her over his shoulder. “That felt _good_.”

She’ll _bet_ it did. There’s so much less tension in his back now, which is _great_ for _him,_ but somehow, over the course of this impromptu massage, it’s all gone into hers. Her fingers feel stiff and clumsy, and she draws them back to her like his bare skin burns her hands. Her throat is dry. Her face feels warm. Her heart flutters in her chest, because she’ll admit that she maybe kind of likes him a fair bit already, but it’s not like she’s ever had the time to admire all of his assets, and, well, _now_ -

“We should get moving,” she says awkwardly. _Not_ awkwardly. It’s only awkward if she admits that it is. “We’ve - er - we’ve got a way to go before we can get home.”

Callum groans. He climbs off the bough looking sulky, but he shrugs on his jacket anyway and pats his shoulder to let Zym clamber onto his back. Rayla tosses him his pack without looking at him, hoping her face isn’t as red as it feels, and when Callum looks at her, he pauses.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she says quickly. “Totally fine. It’s just - erm - _hot_.” 

(She hopes he doesn’t read into that more than he needs to).

  
  
  


iii.

They get caught out in a storm on their way out of the Silvergrove. Callum wonders if it’s magical or something - it’d come out of nowhere, and the canopy of the Moonshadow Forest seems far too thick to let _this_ much of the downpour through. The raindrops are heavy and cold against their skin, and it’s a struggle to find shelter but they find a cave eventually. It’s a little tight, with two mounts and a baby dragon, but it’s better than spending the rest of the night in the storm.

They’re just soaked to the bone by the time they settle.

It’s not as if it’s particularly cold. It’s mid-spring, and summer is certainly starting to make an appearance, but their clothes need to dry and the chill the rain brings isn’t making it any easier. Rayla’s already tense enough, and Callum doesn’t really want to provoke her but he can see the way she’s shivering under the heavy, waterlogged material of her vest, and they’ll _both_ catch colds if they don’t do something about it, but -

He flushes, and his hands grow sweaty within his gloves. “I - uh - I have a couple of towels in my pack?” he offers stupidly.

Rayla bristles. “How’s _that_ going to help, exactly?”

“Well, I mean.” He coughs. “It’s just - it’s cold. And w-wet clothes aren’t going to…”

He trails off when the implication dawns in Rayla’s eyes. Her grumpiness falters, replaced instead by a tinge of pink in her cheeks. There are protests in her face - she’s fine, and she’ll deal with it, and she’d rather be cold and uncomfortable than huddled half naked under a probably-also damp towel, which is another kind of uncomfortable altogether - but her eyes drift to Zym as he dries his wings off by the fire.

They’re so _close_ . He could be home by the end of the week. And the thought of delaying that any longer because of completely avoidable sickness caused by her own stubbornness and modesty seems… _stupid_ to say the least. 

She ducks her head. Shuffles awkwardly on the spot like she knows what she has to say but doesn’t quite have it in her to actually suggest it. Then, at last, she tosses him one of her blades. “Hang your stuff off that to dry,” she mumbles, eyes on the ground, very deliberately avoiding his gaze. “Give me a towel. And don’t _look_.”

“I won’t,” he promises, a little offended that she’d think he would to begin with, but she’s on edge enough without this and if snapping at him makes her feel better, he’ll let her. He pulls the towels from his pack - old scratchy ones he’d taken from the Banther Lodge in case he and Ez had needed them - and hands her one, hiding the blush in his face by not looking at hers at all. “I’ll - um - I’ll keep my back turned. You just… get comfortable.”

She scoffs at that. As if _comfortable_ is even an option at this point. 

He moves back to his side of the cave in silence, his clothes so stiff with rainwater that shedding them becomes a harder task than it should be. It’s not until he’s got the towel over his shoulders and his shirt and jacket hung up that he notices it: the shadow on the floor, lithe and willowy and graceful, even as it peels the silhouette of its shirt off its shoulders to hang it over the hilt of the blade in the wall.

 _Rayla’s_ shadow.

Callum’s mouth goes dry. The shadow shifts as the fire does, and the imperfections in the ground distort its shape, but not enough to hide the fine lines of her figure. The reality of this hits him like punch in the face, and the image of her, uncomposed and indecent, flashes in his mind before he has any hope of stopping it.

His throat closes. His heart hammers away in his chest. He’d noticed beforehand, obviously - they’ve been travelling too closely for too long for him _not_ to, and of course he would - he’s a teenaged boy and she’s a _very_ pretty teenaged girl, and he’s been trying _really hard_ not to _look_ but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t _noticed_ how attracted to her he is _,_ and now - _especially_ now - it’s even harder still.

Something coils in his stomach. Something clenches in his gut. 

“You said you wouldn’t _look_ ,” snaps Rayla, and Callum jumps and turns back to the wall.

He swallows. “I wasn’t.”

  
  
iv.

The proximity isn’t _new._ They’ve hugged before, and it’s getting more and more comfortable to be so near each other - to the point where it’s _comforting_ , even, to know that the other is never an arm’s length away. But the _feelings_ are new, and while Rayla thinks she’s been aware of them for a while, she’d been so _careful_ not to act on them. At least. Not on purpose. There was always the one joke that bordered on flirting, and maybe a touch here or there that lingered for maybe a second too long - but never more than that! And it’d been going _so well_ , and maybe she could have kept it up for a little while longer still -

But then there was last night.

It’s been… an emotionally taxing few days, to say the least. She was upset. She was _vulnerable_ . And Callum was there, of course, and all he’d wanted was to make her _feel better_ . He’d called her _funny_ , and _fast_ , and _beautiful_ , and _the most amazing person he’s ever met_ , and she knows _now_ that it wasn’t a confession, and that he doesn’t have those feelings for her, but - she flushes at the memory - _how else was she supposed to respond?_

Who even looks at their _just-friend_ with adoration like that? Who calls their _just-friend_ ‘beautiful’ the way he had and means it _platonically_ ? And Rayla had - _oh_ , how _embarrassing_ \- Rayla had _kissed_ him because it felt like the right thing to do at the time, and if there was ever a time to admit to him how much she’s grown to like him, it was _then_ but -

_Gods._

They’d spent the rest of their night in relative silence. Twice, Callum had opened his mouth to explain - to _apologise_ \- but she hadn’t let him, and she’d been too humiliated to let him even try. When the sun had risen this morning, and they could _finally_ venture out into the Midnight Desert to track Zym and Nyx, Rayla had decided on the spot that it would be best to just pretend it had never happened at all, but _Callum -_

He’s still thinking about it. It’s in the stiffness of his shoulders and in the way he’s so hesitant to be any nearer to her than he thinks she’s comfortable, and it’d be sweet, probably, if she didn’t know he doesn’t like her that way, but the problem is that she _does_ , and right now, it’s just irritating.

He slips and fumbles and almost falls off their Shadowpaw twice before she gets fed up with it. 

“Just - hold on to me,” she snaps.

Callum blanches, still hanging off the edge of the saddle. “Oh, I mean, I guess I could do that? If you don’t think that would be…”

“If I don’t think that would be _what?_ ”

“Weird?”

The potential for this conversation to get _worse_ is _there_ , but Rayla sets her jaw. “You’re already weird!” she says. “ _Super_ weird. Just hold on!”

“Uh - okay!” he says, climbing back on at last. “Sure! Sure, not weird. Putting my arm around you seems - _very_ normal! I’m just gonna do… _that_.” 

His arms wrap around her waist. His front presses against her back. His breath ghosts against her cheek.

Rayla stiffens in his hold. The proximity isn’t _new_ , she reminds herself. They’ve been closer than this before. But there’s something about the way he’s flush against her that makes her face feel warm and her throat tighten, and she licks her lips, trying not to focus on the broadness of his chest, and the muscle in his arms, and the heat of his hands.

She doesn’t think about the way his breath tickles her ear, or the way he jostles behind her, or the movement of his hips against hers.

She doesn’t think about how _good_ this might feel if the circumstances weren’t so dire. 

Things aren’t like that. He doesn’t like her that way. This is neither the time nor the place for fantasies like _that._

She swallows thickly and urges the Shadowpaw on.

  
  
  


v.

There’s a point in this journey where they realize they need each other more than they know how to say. 

For Rayla, it’d been that day he used Dark Magic to rescue her and that dragon. He’d been unconscious for it. He only has a vague idea of how she’d watched over him that day, and of how _close_ she’d come to admitting to feelings she, at the time, didn’t even really understand herself. He gets it now, of course - the cold dread that would have filled her insides, the fear that would have gripped her heart, that desperation that would have clawed its way into her chest - and he knows because he’d felt it - _all_ of it - every terrifying, heart-stopping second of it - when he watched her tackle Viren off the edge of the Pinnacle and plummet to what should have been her death.

It’s not a memory Callum’s particularly fond of, but it’s not one he’ll so easily forget, either.

That’s what brings them here, to the quarters of the old guard. 

They’ve been empty for months, and they’re quiet. Private. Hidden away from the eyes of the remaining soldiers; from his aunt; from Ezran, even, because it feels like, after all of this, they just need time to be with each other. Rayla’d found them when she’d wandered away from the crowd in search of some space, and she’d brought him with her, of course, because after everything they’ve been through, they don’t really want to be apart.

His kisses are fervent - frenzied by the rush of adrenaline and emotion that had come with almost losing her - and with no one to stop them, their hands begin to wander. Rayla’s run over the runes on his arms, leaving goose pimples in their wake. His find their way to her hips, her waist, her face, clutching at her like he needs her to breathe. He groans against her, relishing the taste of her lips, the heat of her mouth, the little sounds of pleasure that slip from her throat as he tugs her closer, and then closer still -

They’d come down here to talk, he thinks, but the memory is foggy. There was something about wanting to discuss what happens now - where she’ll go, and what he’ll do, now that Zym’s home and there’s no reason to keep travelling together, but he knows what he wants. 

He wants this.

He wants her.

It doesn’t matter where they go or what they’re doing, he just _needs_ to be with her, and he hopes the desperation in his touch makes that clear enough. 

There’s fumbling, and stumbling, and trembling breaths - somehow they find their way to a cot, and then he’s on top of her, his lips against her neck, her hands against his shirt, tugging until the clasps come loose. She traces the line of his clavicle, and his pulse thrums under fingertips, wild and erratic and too fast for him to keep up.

She whimpers beneath him when he pulls away. It’s only for a moment - just long enough to push her vest from her shoulders and to work at her belt with shaking hands - but it’s a moment too long, and Rayla surges forward and puts her lips back on his as she rolls them over in the cot. 

_Gods_ , she’s beautiful. There’s something charming in the flush of her cheeks and something _dangerous_ in the lilac of her eyes, but it's _intoxicating._ All he wants in this very moment is _her,_ and there’s too much _space_ between them - too much fabric between his hands and her skin.

His shirt’s all but hanging off him now, and there’s a tightness in his trousers he can’t ignore anymore, especially in light of the way she’s panting through reddened, parted lips -

But then her hands slow. The hunger in her gaze falters. Her breath escapes her in a rush. 

The reality of where this is going slams into Callum like a brick. There’s nothing to stop them here. There’s no one to interrupt. For the first time - probably ever - they’re _alone_ and won't be disturbed, and, at the rate this is going -

He swallows. “Are - are you okay?” 

Rayla’s breath catches, and when she looks at him this time, there’s something else in her eyes. Something… _nervous_. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “I just - I’ve never -”

She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Callum’s never done this before either, and the same anxiety is starting to well in his chest. “We don’t have to do anything,” he whispers, tucking her hair behind her ears. “We can stop.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she admits quietly. “But - can - can we -”

“Slow down?” Callum lets out a chuckle. Just a little breath of one that ghosts against her skin and tugs sheepishly at the corners of her lips. “We can do that,” he says. “We don’t have to keep going at all, if you don’t want to.”

Rayla chuckles too, red, reluctant to admit it, but in the end, she climbs off him and tugs her shirt a little tighter across her body. “Sorry,” she says again.

Callum blinks. “Why?”

She shrugs. “You - you wanted more, I think. You wanted to keep going.”

“You didn’t.” He sits up, groaning with the effort, and rests his elbows against his knees, earnest, but not at all disappointed. “It doesn’t matter what I want if you’re not comfortable with it just yet. When - _if_ we get around to - _y’know_ \- I want us both to want it. All the books say it’s better that way.”

 _That_ makes her smile. The urgency has all but faded now, but Rayla shuffles to him anyway to rest her head against his shoulder and to tangle her fingers between his. “The books, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Callum. He blushes a little at having outed himself, but he holds her hand tightly all the same. “Gotta be prepared for everything, y’know?”

Rayla laughs at that. “I just… need a little time, if that’s okay.”

“That’s _definitely_ okay,” he promises. “Take all the time you need.”

  
  
  


-

They’re in Katolis for a ball. 

Ez hosts one every year to celebrate the peace they’ve all worked so hard to broker, and being ambassadors has its perks. One is the option to stay in Callum’s old bedroom whenever they visit, which is always a pleasant change from lumpy inn beds and itchy blankets, but even better is having the privacy to bathe for as long as she wants.

It’s a pretty rare moment of respite, and Rayla _relishes_ it. It’s nice to soak, and wash the dirt out from under her nails, and to _relax_ , for once, in the comfort of a steamy bathroom and a tub of hot water. She’d stay in here all day, if she could, but there’ll be dancing and socialising and politics-ing to do later so she’ll take what she can get.

It’s been about an hour now. Her fingers are starting to go pruney, and the bath water’s not nearly as warm as it was when she’d started. She _supposes_ it’s almost time to get out, but it’s just so _nice_ in here, and she’s reluctant to let it end so soon.

But someone knocks against the bathroom door and she lets out a sigh.

“We should probably get a move on,” Callum says, opening it just a smidge.

“Probably,” grumbles Rayla. She turns her head just a little to look at him. It’s not like he’s never seen her like this before, but he still ducks his head, too polite to _look_ until she explicitly lets him. She rolls her eyes. “We’ve got a little time left, though.”

“Oh?” He chances a peek, and Rayla shifts in the bathwater, knowing she has his attention now, knowing exactly what he can and can't see. She smirks. Coy. _Inviting_.

“Care to join me, Your Highness?”

He laughs, and when he _does_ look, he does so appreciatively. “Don’t mind if I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting half done in Google docs for literally a year bc i was scared of the very concept of this fic but I have a minimum of like eight asks asking for me to just bite the bullet and write it SO HERE. I DID IT. CAN I HAVE MY LIFE BACK NOW


End file.
